


Take in the air of a lifelong nightmare

by Wallyallens



Series: small steps home [4]
Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, M/M, batboys bonding over bad situations, batfamily, jason has ptsd, references to escaping from a grave, tim tries to psychoanalyse everyone he meets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:18:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallyallens/pseuds/Wallyallens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an earthquake in Gotham, and Jason gets stuck in a collapsed building with his Replacement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take in the air of a lifelong nightmare

_my dear brother is bound up in cages and rages.  
We'll just have to learn to forget about this_

Of all the people Jason didn’t want to get trapped in a collapsing building with, The Replacement was high on the list. He wasn’t the top of it, of course – the Joker and Bruce bagged the top slots - but he was up there. 

But fate apparently hated him, so Jason crouched miserably in the corner, sitting atop a broken desk in the smouldering remains of what once was quite a lavish office, and tried not to meet the other man’s eyes.

Full disclosure - he didn’t hate the kid anymore. Not like he did when he first came back. Back then, all he saw was a faceless person wearing _his_ colours, walking in _his_ shoes without having to go through the pain to earn them, and he saw red. Jason knew he had hurt the new Robin, flashbacks coming back to him sometimes in nightmares, of Titan’s tower and broken bones and more red, this time blood - but like everything else from back then, it was blurry. 

Those were the days when the Lazarus Pit water flowed through his veins. 

Later, he found it hard to explain what it was like back then, words failing him when accusations flew his way. It was like a hallucination, was the best that he could find; the voices whispering and the green haze which would weigh heavily on him sometimes, making him angry – a dark anger, primal and screaming in his gut. Then he would act as it told him to, and wake up in brief lucid moments to find he’d hurt someone else. 

It took years to get even remotely better. By then, the damage was done: he had hurt his old family irreparably and destroyed any chance of things going back to the way they used to be. It wasn’t him – not really. The Lazarus Pit made him do the things he never would in his right mind; made him act on every thought he usually repressed and release his darkest emotions and impulses. 

It poisoned his body and his mind – and what he did under it’s influence, all the hurting and killing – it had probably claimed his soul, too. Time would have to tell on that one.

Now . . . it was just so damn awkward. Too much had passed between him and the Replacement to ever reconcile, no matter if Jason was talking to some of the others now. He knew the kid had no reason to forgive him or even care if he died in the rubble there and then, and frankly Jason would probably feel the same if the tables were turned. 

But still. _Awkward_.

“Hello?” The Replacement was on his feet across the submerged room they were trapped in, half filled with rubble and lit badly by a few glowsticks he had pulled from his utility belt. Jason tried not to be bothered by the green hue from where he sat, knees up against his chest and hunched, trying to block it all out. Whereas he had given up on getting out, the younger man was more optimistic, still yelling out, voice harsh from the effort. “Hello! Batman, can you hear me? _Superman_!”

That was a long shot, and Jason suspected the kid knew it. 

With all the lost and trapped souls in the aftermath of the earthquake, all praying and shouting for someone to save them, the Replacement’s voice was just another cry in the din. It was pointless. Even if Big Blue was there and looking for them, it was unlikely he would hear them so far beneath the rubble – hell, knowing their luck there was probably several tonnes of lead above their heads.

Across the room, the Replacement sighed. For a second, he leaned against the cracked wall he was shouting towards, pressing his head against the stone. Jason strained to hear his next words, intrigued by the genuine vulnerability the other man was showing, back relaxing. 

He didn’t quite catch the word, but he thought it was a name. There was a ‘K’ somewhere.

The Replacement waited then, obviously expecting some saviour to have heard him despite reason. He stood against the wall, panic forgotten and something desperately hopeful about the way he was waiting that Jason wanted someone to come for him. Not even for himself, just for him, the Repl- for _Tim_. 

That kind of faith was too easily crushed in this life. Jason knew it, Dick knew it – hell, he was sure even the Demon brat knew it. The only person he knew who was still so stubbornly hopeful in this life was the new Batgirl, and even Steph would call him sometimes with a dead voice, asking him to meet her someplace to talk about her day. 

Yet the Replacement apparently retained a fragment of hope, waiting to be saved.

Now he was paying closer attention, Jason could see it in the way Tim carried himself – there was strength in his spine, looking the world in the eye. But there was a kindness untouched by it to: here was a man who truly believed the ideal which they all stepped out in cape and cowl to protect. 

He still believed in heroes. It would be sweet, if it wasn’t likely to get him killed.

“No one’s coming, kid,” Jason snapped from his post. He didn’t mean to or even particularly want to destroy the hope he could see, but he didn’t want the Replacement to delude himself any longer. It took Jason dying to learn that hope was useless when you really needed it. “I want to die again in _peace_ , if you don’t mind shutting the hell up.”

“We’re _not_ going to die,” Tim replied sharply, whipping around. He glared over with a mixture of rage and pleading; not wanting to fight right now, but not here for Jason’s bullshit. “Batman’s probably out there looking for us! You really think he’d let us die down here?”

“You’re asking _me_ that?”

Jason laughed cruelly, legs uncurling from his chest and swinging carelessly under the table. At the Replacement’s words, he felt a familiar kick in the chest of disappointment in his former mentor, quickly rising to an angry boil. It was good – it was feeling again, not shutting down like he wanted to. It meant he wanted to survive. 

Tim froze at the response, obviously finding the fault in his words. His hands clenched tighter on the Bo Staff in his belt as soon as the other man moved, ready to fight. Jason noticed. It made him stay on the desk for now, but his mind was wandering around the room, looking for an exit.

“Hood, I – he’s coming, okay?” Tim said finally, defeated. “I know he’s coming. He never stopped trying to save you – do you think he’s going to stop now?”

Jason burst into laughter. It was genuine and loud, filling the room in booming chimes until his stomach hurt. He rocked back and forth, shaking his head. “Oh man, I needed that. Nice one, kid – _Batman_? Trying to help _me_? To the hospital, maybe. Or Arkham.”

Tim shook his head disgustedly. Walking back across the room, he slumped against the wall and sat, drawing out his staff and playing with it in his hands. “Forget it, Hood. You’re never going to get it.”

The way he said it set off warning sparks in Jason’s mind. He knew there was condescension in there, the droll disappointment he heard all too often from Bruce and that it should make him feel inadequate somehow, like a lost cause. But he smiled instead.  
He’d have killed the Replacement for that a year ago. Now, he just wanted to get them both out of there alive – he didn’t want to be the source for all that disappointment. Not anymore.

“You know, in my head, I know I should be panicking right now,” Jason smirked and threw the words out there like old cigarette ash. Getting to his feet, he walked breezily across the room, deliberately staying a few feet away from the other man and examining a large crack on the wall. He stood facing it, slowly working his way around the room and gesturing wildly with one hand. “I mean, I _was_ until a few seconds ago. Collapsing building? Small, enclosed spaces? That’s _so_ not on my level to begin with – but no hope of escape, either? I should either be on my knees praying for my poor black soul or crying on the floor like a baby right now.”

The casualness in which Jason spoke was confusing even him. He didn’t talk about stuff like this. Ever. But it helped to fill the silence, he guessed. On the other side of the room, Tim’s breathing had slowed as he calmed, listening. Good. They both needed to keep their heads.

“But the way I see it – I already died once, scared and begging for someone else to save me. It didn’t take,” he prodded a loose section of the wall, feeling it crumple beneath his fingertips. Pleased with the weak spot he had found, he dragged his nails deeper until a section collapsed at his feet, sending a thin cloud of ash into the air. Coughing once, the red hood kept pushing until he could get a fist through the wall. “So this time, I’m not waiting for anyone to save me. I’m gonna save myself.”

The air had been getting thin in the room they were trapped in, but when he put his lips to the hole and inhaled, sweet, fresh air filled his lungs. And it felt good.

Dry lips cracking as he grinned in relief, he shouted back, “Get over here, Replacement.”

“Why?” Tim’s voice asked, dripping with sarcasm, “Is it gas?”

Jason turned, putting on an expression of disgust. He tilted his head to the side, “No, it’s _air_ , you moron. Why would it be gas?”

“Why would you share your air with me?” 

The counter was so quick, the assumed response, Jason stepped back. Did the Replacement really think he’d let him die five feet away from an air source? He wouldn’t. If he wanted Tim dead, he’d be the one to kill him, and it wouldn’t be in such a cowardly way. Plus, if he got out and the Replacement didn’t, Batman would put him in the hospital - if Dick didn’t beat him to it.

“Because,” Jason pouted, leaning against the wall. In his eyes, he challenged Tim to do something stupid – and trust him. “Batman would beat the hell out of me when he found out. And then I’d have goldie pissed at me, or moping around my place asking why I let his baby brother die. And I ain’t putting up with that shit. So go on, quickly!”

As the older man half-collapsed a few feet away, the burn in his lungs lessened after the sweet solace of fresh air a few moments before, the younger one got hesitantly to his feet; never taking his eyes off his ‘brother’ or letting his grip on the Bo staff go slack. Everything about his stance and posture screamed wariness as she took slow steps to the whole, but his shoulders loosened when he breathed in clean air – a small sigh of relief even left him, and Jason found himself smirking.

“See,” Red Hood chimed, pointing to himself. “Not as big an asshole as I could’ve been.”

“Thanks,” Tim replied. He was a little breathless, hands holding onto the edge of the hole as he sucked in deep, contented breaths. Although he listened to it, Jason couldn’t hear a shred of sarcasm or anything other than earnestness in the other man’s tone. It was a good feeling.

So instead of diminishing it with a dry comment or cheap joke, Jason said nothing, waving his hand casually instead. 

He waited until Tim was breathing normally again before he got to his feet, moving to stand beside Red Robin and a fist sized hole in the wall. They shared a glance before Jason reached out, grabbing a loose section and pulling until it came off so he could throw it away, poking his head through the hole a second later; as he put his hand back, Tim placed a glowstick into it without having to be asked. It was instinctual.

“I can’t see much,” Jason admitted, putting the glowstick in his palm and extending it ahead of him. Waving it from left to right to see what was illuminated, he strained his eyes, barely making out flipped desks and broken chairs in the din ahead, but there was no fire in that room, which was a step forward than where they were. “But there’s no fire through here, the air should be clearer. And if we keep working our way through the rubble there might be a way out.”

But when Jason withdrew from the hole, turning to the other man with a shrug, Tim looked less than impressed. He replied sarcastically, “Yeah. Or we could cause it to collapse and y’know – _bury us alive_.”

“What sort of attitude is that to have?” Jason asked loudly, throwing his own hands into the air. “I mean Timmy Boy, that’s just defeatist. I for one don’t plan on dying down here.”

To illustrate his point, Jason pulled out another huge chuck of wall. Motioning for Tim to move back, to which the younger man surprisingly obliged and stepped back a few paces, the Hood then started kicking the wall, repeatedly driving his heavy boot through it. By the time he next stood back, there was a gap large enough to fit a man through.

“So,” Jason said, turning around. “You coming?”

Tim still looked wary. “Answer me something first.”

“Shoot. Not literally.”

“Why are you like this?” the younger man said. Again, there was nothing but earnestly in his tone, with a hint of genuine curiosity. It was screamed in the way his head tilted just a fraction to the left, and how his lips were slightly downturned, musing over something. Jason cursed Bruce’s detective training. For once he’d just like to talk to someone and notice everything they _didn’t_ want to say. “You . . . You tried to kill me, Hood. There’s no reason for you to want me to get out of here alive, if you meant everything you’ve said to me over the past few years. But then sometimes – the way you are with Dick. There’s a familiarity. And even with some of the others now . . . Steph says you’re better. She says you’ve stopped hurting but I – I just don’t see how that could be true. But I can’t tell; I can’t. You never seem to be the same person twice.”

For a moment, the other man didn’t answer. When he did, his tone held a forced lightness, something awkward lingering on each word. “I guess I’m contrary like that.”

“I’m being serious,” Tim pushed. Although Jason had made his exit and hoped that would end the discussion, ducking through to the next room along with a little difficulty squeezing his shoulder’s through the gap. But Tim wanted a straight answer. Following him more easily, the current Red Robin questioned again. “I mean, is this a temporary truce or something else? I don’t like not knowing where I stand.”

Jason was walking away. Glowstick extended, he kicked pieces of rubble out of the way as he made his way through what appeared to be a former office cubicle block, heading towards what looked like a staircase on the other side of the room. If they were very, very lucky, it would be passable. 

“You can’t always get what you want, Replacement. For example – I didn’t want to die. You learn to live with disappointments.”

“Have you always substituted feelings with humour?”

“What?” Jason blinked, whirling around. “Hey! I do not do that. I _don’t_.” They stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds before he caved. “What I do or don’t do is none of your concern, fanboy.”

“And you do that a lot,” Tim pointed out as Jason stomped off again, following him with long strides and an amused gracing his features. He was enjoying this, just a little bit. Any time when Jason wasn’t actively trying to maim and/or kill him was a bonus in his book. “You start throwing out insults when you feel threatened. ‘Replacement’, ‘fanboy’ – ‘goldie’. It’s textbook deflection.”

“I guess Batman taught you all about that in soldier boot camp,” Jason mocked dryly. Glad his back was turned to he could pass it off as casual, he secretly smirked as he challenged. “What does your analysis of other people during stressful times to depersonalise yourself from the situation mean?”

Tim was not fazed, as far as Jason could tell. He didn’t miss a beat. “That we were both raised by the same man, and that training doesn’t fade. We just apply it differently.”

“Bruce didn’t raise me.”

“Then why is it your default reaction to go back to what he taught you?”

Jason was glad he could avoid answering that. Hitting the back wall of the room, he found the remains of a door and Tim paused his interrogation to help break it down and clear a small pile of rubble behind it, a few inches thick before they crawled through to a almost intact stairwell. It was dusty, the air thick with ash from the collapse and fires which had already burned out, the space around them airtight – which was going to be a problem.

“I have this,” Tim said, holding up a rebreather from his belt he’d been saving for a worse situation. “But I only have the one. We could take it in turns taking breaths and try to make it up, or I can go ahead and see if there’s a clear way out.”

“We should stay together. If you go up there and something else collapsed, if you’re hurt or trapped – how would I know if I was down here?” The Red Hood shook his head. “No, it’s logical to stay close by. We power through.”

Tim nodded in agreement. He hadn’t thought about the possibility of getting injured while off alone, and was momentarily surprised that Jason had. But then again, he was Robin once. He must have been good.

“Okay. But you _use_ the rebreather, Jason. None of this stoic ‘I don’t need your help’ bullshit.”

Jason rolled his eyes before he turned and grinned wickedly. “Do I look like I have a death wish? Of course I’ll use it. I’m not dying. _Again_.”

Dashing through the hole they had created, he started taking the stairs beyond three at a time, leaving Tim to sigh dramatically in his wake, shaking his head in disbelief. He had never been exposed to this side of Jason before – he was playful, almost funny in a crass way. If anything, he reminded Tim of Steph like this, which was beyond weird.

Realising he was falling behind and Jason’s longer legs was taking him further away into the darkness, Tim cursed under his breath and ran to catch up. Instantly on fire, his lungs ached with the low levels of oxygen in the staircase, and a few flights of stairs up he rejoined his would-be brother, who was leaning against a wall and panting.

Wordlessly, Tim handed over the rebreather, its supply of oxygen painfully small. Jason took a breath from it, motioned for Tim to do the same, and took off running again. It was lucky the way was fairly stable and passable – but then again, most of Gotham was built with disaster predictions these days. 

That was a side-effect of living in a city where supervillain attacks were a weekly occurrence. A boost for the local builder’s merchants and insurance companies, and buildings made to withstand Superman.

“What’s that?” Tim skidded to a stop, almost running into Jason in the semi-darkness.

Hood was kneeling near a new pile of rubble, collapsed from the wall and spilling out over the stairs. To Tim it looked like nothing, his lungs already aching for another breath of air, which he reluctantly took, but Jason was shoving handfuls of it away. He scrabbled at the stone until more came away, exposing a beam of light.

“A way out, maybe,” Jason replied. Quickly lying on the floor, again refusing the rebreather offered to him but coughing a little, he kicked out against the wall until it started to give way, creating a space big enough to crawl through. “Go on, through there.”

“We should keep heading up,” Tim argued. “This could lead to a roof, a way out.”

“The buildings gone, there’s no roof left to get to. I’ll bet it’s been levelled. We need to head out, not up.”

“You first, then.”

Jason would have argued any other time, but his head was screaming and he needed to breathe. It was a panic, hands shaking as he pushed more rubble clear until his shoulders and torso could crawl through, his belly scraping against the concrete below, leaving a small swipe of blood. Tight spaces and no air. Yay, flashbacks.

On the other side, he sucked in the fresh air like a drowning man, lying on his back after rolling to the side to leave room for Tim to follow. Coughing, he held out a hand to pull the younger man through, a leather glove meeting his own and clasping, allowing the help as Jason pulled Tim through the rest of the way. 

There was no thanks given or needed. Jason didn’t expect one – for now there was a mutual understanding that they needed each other to survive. Perhaps when this was over he’d buy the Replacement a beer as a show of gratitude and they could happily return to avoiding each other like the plague. 

“There’s an air source somewhere,” Tim said. He stood first, his uncorrupted lungs recovering more quickly from the oxygen deprivation as he stopped to feel the breeze on his cheek. That meant not only air, but movement – a filter system or even a way outside. “I can feel it. Stay, catch your breath – I’ll go see what I can find.”

“What if something happens?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “I’ll scream.”

“And _I’m_ the one using sarcasm to hide my feelings,” Jason argued dryly, but he licked his dry lips with a flick of his tongue and smiled. They cracked miserably, leaking a pitifully small amount of blood which washed his teeth pink. 

Pointedly ignoring him, Tim strode towards the light – a window, he saw as he grew closer. It was translucent with ash and he could see the silhouettes of things stacked the other side, blocking their way – but it was something.

Pulling out his Bo Staff, he smashed the nearest window pane. The sound was somehow comforting as it shattered, cracking through the air and letting in a new gush of wind, still ashy from the initial cloud following the earthquake, but cleaner than the air they were currently breathing. He grinned, slashing and stabbing at the frosted panes until only the bare frame of the window remained. 

“H- Jason!” he shouted over his shoulder, joyously dragging handfuls of rubble into the room and out of the way. “Get over here, I’ve found a way out!”

There was a low grumbling and string of curses as Jason moved across the room, accompanied by a hacking that worried Tim more than it should have. Obviously Hood was suffering from the lack of air and inhalation of dust and smoke more than he was, but Tim supposed smoking cigarettes since your teenage years didn’t do much for your lung capacity.

Then there was a wet cough, and Jason was beside him, pulling at the broken brick and unidentifiable objects blocking their way, to mangled and charred to tell apart. It turned their hands even blacker as they worked, coating their gloves with dark ash and sending even more ash into the air with each section they managed to collapse.

“Okay, give me a leg-up,” the younger man instructed. They had cleared enough for him to climb out of the window. When it looked clear Jason was going to argue that he should go first, Tim held up a silencing finger. “Listen, you can barely go three seconds without coughing and we don’t know how high up we are – I’m just going to look out, see if there’s a way down. Do it.”

Jason huffed but linked his hands together after the smallest of hesitations. Trying not to be smug about winning, Tim grabbed onto the window frame and put his foot into the makeshift hold, being pushed higher a second later. Leaning out with his side against the rubble, Tim saw a wasteland.

The street had been levelled. The entire row of buildings was collapsed and burning, emergency services dotted about, either inspecting the rubble or trying to free trapped civilians. It was relatively quiet though, so Tim had a sinking feeling the damage was to much more than just this street – half of the city could be in ruins for all he could tell.

Above, the sky was grey and thick with ash, not a single speck of colour penetrating its chokehold on the city. The colour dominated his entire view – concrete destruction, smoke and devastation. 

The only good thing was that the building they had been trying to evacuate had been lowered a few floors, a slope of assorted smoking crap leaving a way down to the street. It wasn’t exactly stable or a even angle to walk on, but hell, they jumped of buildings nightly. They’d deal.

“I’m going out,” he said back, pulling the rest of his body through the frame. Staying on his belly to keep a low centre of gravity so he couldn’t lose grip or balance, Tim turned himself around to face the window again and put an arm through to pull Jason up. “Okay, come up but stay low. It’s steep out here, but we should be able to get down. Hopefully.”

“Always good to have the vote of confidence,” Jason remarked, but took the extended hand. 

He winced as remains of glass fragments cut into his side, the frame not quite large enough to accommodate his bulk, but he held his tongue. It wouldn’t do either of them any good if he stayed stuck in the building because of a few small cuts; it was nothing an anti-bac spray and bandage wouldn’t fix.

But a small groan of pain escape him when he was finally free, lying back on the rubble with a pained expression. The Replacement picked up on it immediately, pushing himself up to his knees and putting a concerned hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

“M’fine,” Jason tried to push him off, but the Replacement was annoyingly persistent as ever. “Just cut myself on the way out. It’s no big.”

Unfazed, Tim rolled Jason, pulling him up so the older man’s arm was around his shoulders while Tim bore a lot of his weight. The coughing had started again, Jason’s lungs irritated by the movement; he was starting to look decidedly not-good. “We need to get you to a hospital, come on.”

“Not hospital,” Jason said. Together, they staggered down the side of the mound, barely keeping their footing on the shifting grains. A few times they fell, Tim having hit his left knee oddly during the initial quake; it kept annoyingly giving way. To his surprise, Jason pulled him back to his feet each time he fell. “Leslie’s clinic. Please.”

Into the grey they stumbled on.

*

A week later, Red Robin was on patrol in Midtown when someone landed on the ledge beside him. An iced bottle of beer was pressed into his hand before he could react to the presence, the slouching form of Red Hood sitting beside him a second later, a bottle held aloft between them until Tim confusedly clinked them together.

“Cheers,” Jason said, an awkwardness to his tone. “Don’t ever say I do nothin’ for ya.”

Tim nodded. He sipped his drink in peace for a few minutes, thinking how this was nice. It should be like this always. But because it was his own default mode to analyse people, he had worked out why there was a forced tone to everything Jason said to him. “Hood, I know what’s happened between us. But you don’t have to apologise to me; I get it. Things are complicated.”

“I don’t deserve that.”

“Then earn it,” Tim shrugged. “Another hundred or so more beers should do it.”

It might have been a trick of the wind, but he would have sworn he heard a small laugh at that. Tim grinned into his own beer, a look that froze onto his face and stayed for days when Jason replied.

“You know, you’re not so bad, Red.”

“Neither are you, Red.”

They both kept drinking in silence after that, but each of them smiled towards Gotham’s lights. The city was rebuilding around them after the earthquake, and perhaps they were building new foundations, too.

**Author's Note:**

> wow, this turned out longer than I expected. 'Nicotine and Alcohol saved my life' by Deaf Havana is the source. good tune. v jay. cass next!   
> also: Jason reminding everyone that he died like every five minutes cracks me up.


End file.
